A Republican member of the Securities and Exchange Commission criticized the agency’s approach to regulating the cryptocurrency industry, saying the SEC should be making more of an effort to work with crypto firms to establish rules they can comply with
WASHINGTON—A Republican member of the Securities and Exchange Commission criticized the agency’s approach to regulating the cryptocurrency industry, which Chairman Gary Gensler, a Democrat, has likened to the Wild West.
, has suggested that most cryptocurrencies likely meet the definition of a security and should therefore comply with SEC rules. Among other things, that would mean the online trading platforms that enable individual investors to buy and sell cryptocurrencies should be registered with the SEC. “Regulators tend to be very conservative for a reason,” she said. “If something doesn’t get approved, we’re not going to get blamed; if something does get approved and something goes wrong, we will get blamed. But that hesitation is really costly for smaller entities.”
“I do think, at this point, there’s a lot of jurisdictional interest in this space,” she said. “People can see that there’s going to be rapid growth here, and people want to get a toehold on it.”